Introduction
For my analysis I am going to look at Alluc.org, I have frequently used this website for films and television programs, so I am vaguely familiar with the layout etc, though I have never used the forum or any of the other new interactive features. This website is a website in which u can access links to thousands upon thousands of music videos, films and television shows. Many of the links lead you to illegal pirate films that have been filmed in the cinema and are very bad quality, but there are also many links that take you to high quality rips of the films. Although streaming films is not illegal, many of the films that are on the website were filmed illegally in cinemas. The UK Film council recon that they loose £800 million a year due to film piracy. (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3097544.ece)
This website is very of the time in todays news, because it is also one of the reasons why the writers strike in America occurred in the first place. The WGA wanted compensation for there programs going out on to websites like this in the first place. As I use this website frequently for television programs especially, it could be said that I was not helping the situation in America, because I was backing a website which was not giving any money to the original creators of the content, but because American shows take longer to come over to the UK, it is a quick and easy way to access them and as I said before it is not actually illegal, because all the content is streamed.
This is an issue raised by Lawrence Lessig who says that he is against the idea that producers have the right to prevent other users from modifying and reusing the content, and so he may think that this website is perfectly acceptable and should not really cause any controversy, but when there is so much money involved, especially in the film and television industry should it still be the case that any one should be free to reproduce and modify content? I believe that this may be a little drastic and that maybe something should be done in order for the industries to get money out of it, but I would still like the content to be free, I suppose we can not have it both ways.
5 comments:
yes kayleigh...you are not helping America! haha
I think it is wrong that everyone has free acces and the owners of the content are missing out, but at the same time I hate how things take so long to come out over here, mainly just because usually by the time it does we know what happens anyway from discussions on American websites. Then that ruins it.
I wouldn't be wiling to pay to view the content online while I can get it for free, but if all the free viewing websites were taken away I guess I would compromise and be willing to pay a small fee each month or just for what I watched. Im not sure what would be better? What do you think?
If we had no choice but to pay a small fee then people would either just have to accept that, or there would be a drastic decline in the amount of media being viewed online. I don't know whether that would be a good or a bad thing, but it would stop the original creators conducting strikes, etc.
Is it true though that american pogrames take so long to get brought over here and our society are not patient enough to wait, so i think there will always be a demand for media streaming online.
I agree that watching films online without paying a fee is unfair. However, television programmes are (other than a liscence) free to watch, therefore using the site to acess programmes that are not released here, or just using it to watch programmes at our own convienience should not really be a problem should it?
I think if we didn't pay a license for our televisions we would be willing to pay an online fee - rather than paying both.
Although it does seem unfair that the creators and owners of the media miss out, I don't think online films particularly affect the box office ratings (or don't YET anyway) As well as this, people paying their TV licenses are paying for television programmes anyway, and I would argue that most people looking up media on the internet will have a television, therefore are (hopefully) paying their license. `
Kayleigh,
You've certainly done lots of good work on your blog. I think this is a sensible website to analyse. You also raise some interesting points about film piracy and the links to the writers strikes - good! You refer to Lawrence Lessig, and I wonder if you could reference this and use a direct quote?
A very good discussion has ensued from your original blog post - mainly concerning finances which are clearly pertinent to students, but excellent stuff all the same.
All the best
Emma
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